By Yasmeen Abutaleb
Senior staff writer
Tom Madigan and his Gazette coworkers were frustrated. The community newspaper had been furiously
covering the 2002 Washington-area
sniper attacks, and some New York
Times reporter was scooping everyone with incriminating details.
The young journalist was the first
to report that the United States attorney for this state ended state and
federal investigators’ interrogation of
John Muhammad, one of two suspects,
when he seemed ready to confess.
“It did not look like the juvenile
was going to talk,” the reporter quoted
an unnamed local law enforcement
official in an Oct. 30, 2002, article.
“But it looked like Muhammad was
ready to share everything, and these
guys were going to get a confession.”
Within a few days, federal and state
officials would denounce the story.
That allegation, along with many
others in Times reports surrounding
the serial shootings, simply wasn’t true.
But until then, Madigan and his colleagues wondered, who the hell was
this reporter from New York pumping
information from Washington sources
when local news outlets couldn’t?
Madigan caught a front-page
Times story on the attacks and saw
the byline: Jayson Blair.
He couldn’t help but chuckle to
himself. Blair was a former colleague
at The Diamondback, this university’s independent daily student
newspaper. The young reporter had
worked as both a writer and the editor
in chief for The Diamondback, and
his peers had experienced his deception firsthand.
“As soon as I saw the byline, I
told people not to worry too much,”
Madigan said. “I was skeptical of the
quality of the journalist producing it.”
The sniper was just one of many
stories that eventually led Blair,
who declined several requests for
comment, to resign from the Times
on May 1, 2003 — exactly 10 years ago
today. A Times internal investigation
found he plagiarized and fabricated
dozens of articles — including his

Towson
baseball
bailout
assailed

RESIGNED
TO REALITY,
TOO LATE
FOR THE
TIMES

Critics label decision
unfair amid past cuts
By Jim Bach
Senior staff writer
As the debate over allocation of state
funds to save Towson University sports
teams continues, major players in the
conversation couldn’t help but draw
comparisons to this university’s experience with financial insecurity and
athletic cuts, which didn’t see the same
state support.
Towson officials based their decision more on Title IX compliance than
financial woes, they said. But critics
of the decision called into question
the fairness of the financial hand Gov.
Martin O’ Malley extended to the
college while offering no such help
to this university in 2012, when officials announced they were cutting 7
sports teams to in an attempt to shrink
mounting debt. Others pointed out,
however, that university President
Wallace Loh didn’t receive the same
amount of backlash at the time, either.
Towson University President Maravene Loeschke received harsh criticism in March over her decision to cut
the university’s baseball and men’s
soccer programs and again in April for
failing to show up at a meeting with
the state’s Board of Public Works to
explain her decision. State Comptroller
Peter Franchot called for her removal,
saying she had misled the Towson athletes and “forfeited her claim on moral
leadership.”
But shortly following Franchot’s
claims, Sen. Jim Brochin (D-Baltimore
County), whose jurisdiction includes
Towson University, questioned why
Loeschke was called to task for her
decision when university President
Wallace Loh made a similar move to cut
seven varsity sports programs in 2012.
“I don’t understand what’s differ-

As Jayson Blair’s New
York Times plagiarism
saga unraveled, former
Diamondback staff
members watched with
tragic curiosity — and
knew they had been
right all those years

the diamondback, may 2, 2003; illustration by ben fraternale/the diamondback

See blair, Page 7

See TOWSON, Page 9

Students
talk taboo
in BDSM
dialogues

On Cloud 9 shutters
2 years after opening

‘Truth Behind Fifty
Shades of Grey’ panel
examines kinky sex

After just two years of business,
College Park’s only fashion boutique, On Cloud 9, is closing its
doors for good.
The store opened in March 2011 on
College Avenue down the street from
Wasabi Bistro, marketing its trendy
women’s clothing in hopes of filling
a gap in the city’s retail offerings. But
owner Carol Gowling owned three
other stores, and after her husband
died last year, she decided maintaining her College Park location was too
much to handle, said Briana Abedi,
who works at the store.
“It was more of a personal situation … more that she didn’t have the
time,” Abedi said. “She has daughters who go [to this university] but

By Savannah Doane-Malotte
Staff writer
Students in Stamp Student Union’s
Colony Ballroom last night prepared
themselves for a conversation many
had never before dared to discuss in a
public setting — kinky sex.
The lecture and panel discussion,
led by feminist pornographer and sex
educator Tristan Taormino, aimed to
debunk myths about BDSM presented
in the erotic romance novel, Fifty Shades

Tristan Taormino speaks about Fifty Shades of Grey and BDSM sexual experimentation in Stamp Student Union
yesterday. The feminist pornographer led a discussion on approaches to kinky sex. tim drummond/for the diamondback
of Gray, as well as teach students about
having safe sexual experiences.
Jenna Beckwith, sexual health
program coordinator at the University
Health Center, said she recognized a
need for such an event when she saw
the influence Fifty Shades was having
on students’ sex lives.
“I think that in my realm of work,
where students come to me with their
sexual health concerns, I saw that with

the popularity of Fifty Shades, kinky sex
seemed to be the trendy thing to do,”
Beckwith said. “The popularity of this
book really brought to light a lot of misconceptions and misinformation that
young people were having about sexuality.
We wanted to open up a space for students to explore their identities and ask
questions about this topic in a safe place.”

NEWS 2 OPINION 4 FEATURES 5 DIVERSIONS 6 CLASSIFIED 6 SPORTS 12

See bdsm, Page 3

Submit tips to The Diamondback at newsumdbk@gmail.com

are graduating, so it’s not worth it for
her to stay. [The store] wasn’t doing
enough for her to use her time and
energy to stay here.”
Its lease ends in late May, but On
Cloud 9 might close earlier, possibly
within the next few weeks, Abedi said.
The city’s only higher-end fashion store
is selling everything for 50 percent off
and will close when it runs out of merchandise, she added.
Michael Stiefvater, the city’s economic development coordinator, said
he hadn’t anticipated the store’s closing,
at least for business reasons.
“Walking by, there’s usually people
in there,” Stiefvater said. “People shop
there for their daughters, so I always
thought they were doing well.”
But business reasons also contributed

Closure
From PAGE 1
to Gowling’s decision to close,
Abedi said. Gowling could not
be reached for comment by
phone or email.
Clothing stores in College
Park have struggled with a lack
of space, high rent and seasonal
drops in business, Stiefvater
told The Diamondback in a previous interview. The city’s only
long-standing clothing store
is Rugged Wearhouse in the
College Park Shopping Center,
which appeals to many of its
customers precisely for what
On Cloud 9 lacks: cheap prices.
O n C l o u d 9 ’s c l o t h i n g ,
though unique and trendy, was
too expensive for a college town,
several students said.
“I like the clothes; it’s a cute
store,” said Natalia Peredo, a
freshman enrolled in letters and
sciences. She had been to the
store about five times, adding
the prices were high but it was
her only option in the city.
The store’s layout reminded
senior family science major Sadé
Diggs of a boutique, but she was
also turned off by the prices.
“I’m a college student, and
I’m broke and I’m currently not
working, so I couldn’t really
buy everything I wanted from
there,” Diggs said.

“it’s just the reality of the retail world in
general. for every place that closes, one or two
opens as well.”
MICHAEL STIEFVATER

College Park economic development coordinator
But Diggs added she thought
other students might shop there
because of the store’s unique offerings, which are different from
those at stores such as Forever
21 and American Apparel.
Diggs, who is involved in the
campus group Echelon Fashion
Society, said she hopes to see
more clothing stores come to
College Park. Members of the
organization visit boutiques
and designers in the Washington area to find clothes for their
fashion shows. But it would be a
lot easier if they didn’t have to
travel so far, Diggs said.
“I don’t drive, so everywhere
I get to is by bus or if someone
drops me off,” she said. “So it
would be easier if we had more
in the area. … Rugged [Wearhouse] is the closest thing
other than [The Mall at Prince
Georges], and even [that] mall
isn’t really convenient, because
you have to catch a bus to
campus and it doesn’t run like
I want it to run.”
There are no current plans for
another clothing store to open
in College Park, Stiefvater said.
A landlord initially was looking

for a place to open a vintage
clothing store, he added, but
it “didn’t end up happening.”
On Cloud 9’s closing isn’t
anything out of the ordinary,
Stiefvater said, but rather represents the transient nature of
the retail industry.
“On the bright side, we have
lots of openings — Garbanzo
[Mediterranean Grill] and The
Maryland Smokehouse,” he
said. “It’s just the reality of
the retail world in general. For
every place that closes, one or
two opens as well.”
Stiefvater isn’t sure what will
replace On Cloud 9 on College
Avenue, but because of the way
the space is built, he said it most
likely wouldn’t be a restaurant.
Some students, such as
Diggs, will continue to hold out
hope for another clothing store.
Diggs would be happy with anything: a chain clothing store, a
thrift store, a men’s clothing
store or even a shoe store.
“We really don’t have anything, now that I think about
it,” she said.
newsumdbk@gmail.com
christian jenkins/the diamondback

Follow @thedbk on Twitter
for alerts, breaking news, updates & more!

Remembering victims of domestic violence
In honor of domestic violence victims, the members of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority made paper lanterns and held a candlelight vigil
at their chapter house on College Avenue yesterday.
About 70 members of the Greek life community showed up for the event, including representatives from several fraternities and other
sororities. The members lined the walkway outside their house with lanterns made from paper bags inscribed with quotes by Walt Whitman, Eleanor Roosevelt and Oprah Winfrey and had a moment of silence. The goal was to bring awareness to the cause, which is also the
focus of the sorority’s community service.
“Every little bit helps,” said Alyse Hopkins, the event’s organizer and a senior government and politics major. “If you touch one person,
then you’ve done your job.”

WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2013 | NEWS | THE DIAMONDBACK

3

BDSM

MORE ONLINE

QUICK TIPS: HOW TO BE COOL
On a scale from one to 10, how cool do you think you are? If
your rate yourself anywhere under five, continue reading. Here are
some quick tips on how to be cool. Thank me later.
Instagram selfies: Think of your photographed face as an
uploaded gift from the gods. You must post a picture of your face
four times a day — at a minimum. Get creative with it! Duck faces
are certainly welcomed. The entire world will love you and not find
you annoying at all.
Sunglasses: Contrary to what many may believe, sunglasses
should be worn in all climates. What do you mean the sun isn’t out?
So what if you’re inside of a building? Sunglasses indicate you are
cool, so don’t even bother taking them off. Trust me, no one really
needs to see what your eyes look like anyway. Be mysterious.
When is looking like the lead singer of Smash Mouth a bad thing?
Case closed.

photo by lets.book/flickr

For more of Miranda Vega’s post, check out The Diamondback’s
student blogs at diamondbackonline.com.

From PAGE 1
During the discussion,
sexual health experts and university faculty exposed false
stereotypes described in the
novel, such as the idea that all
people who engage in BDSM
were abused at one point, so
they express that trauma in
their sex lives. The book’s
main characters perpetuate
the belief, but that’s largely
untrue, said Tamara Pincus,
a clinical social worker who
spoke on the panel.
“Kink is very stigmatized,
and it’s important that students see that we are just
regular people like everybody
else,” Pincus said. “Most people
know that they are kinky at a
young age, and it’s just part of
how people develop.”
Addressing the various
stigmas associated with BDSM,
Taormino — who also hosts the
radio talk show Sex Out Loud —
highlighted how at the center
of every BDSM relationship
is consent, a factor she said
many people unfamiliar with
the culture don’t link with
kinky sex.
“Consent is absolutely
explicit when kinky people
decide to do something with
each other,” Taormino said.
“The goal is to both give and
receive consent from their
partner, and to make sure that

TRISTAN TAORMINO, a feminist pornographer and sex educator, debunked the stereotypes
presented in the erotic romance novel Fifty Shades of Grey. tim drummond/for the diamondback
each person is informed. They
want it to be enthusiastic, to
have an ‘I’m totally on board
with this’ type of consent.”
Sophomore biology major
Ellen Lee attended the event just
out of curiosity about the culture.
“It was very eye-opening; I
didn’t even know that kink was
a thing, I didn’t know that they
formed real communities of
real people,” Lee said. “A lot of
people are too afraid to explore
that side of themselves, in fear
of judgment. It really made me
understand kink better and why
people do it.”
The BDSM culture is not only

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updates & more!

applicable to kinky people,
Taormino said, as some of
th e principles o f co nsent
and communication could be
readily applied to “vanilla,” or
nonkinky, relationships. Any
couple looking to improve their
sexual relationship could do
so by putting these ideas into
practice, she said.
“Any therapist will tell you that
you’re more likely to succeed in
a relationship if you communicate more,” Taormino said. “So
the question is: What can kinky
people teach nonkinky people?”
newsumdbk@gmail.com

4

Opinion

THE DIAMONDBACK | WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2013

Mike King
EDITORIAL BOARD

Editor in Chief

DAN APPENFELLER
Managing Editor

Tyler Weyant
Deputy Managing Editor

JACK CHEN/the diamondback

STAFF EDITORIAL

Play by the rules of the game
be paid for by revenues and resources
generated by the intercollegiate athletic
program within the institution.”
Clearly, the $300,000 from the
state budget isn’t among revenues and
resources generated by the Towson
baseball program. Loeschke herself
said in a March 15 column in The
Baltimore Sun, “State funds cannot
be used to pay for athletics, and thus
their financing is a special challenge
in our state institutions.”

OUR VIEW

The Board of Regents should
not simply find loopholes to
subvert its own policies.
But O’Malley arranged this deal,
which was passed by the General Assembly, to grant the system $300,000
— which subsequently went directly to
save Towson’s baseball team.
Lawmakers initially decided against
directly giving Towson money to
revive the baseball team, something
Comptroller Peter Franchot called a
“bailout,” which legislators wanted to
avoid, according to The Baltimore Sun.
But they decided to give the system the
$300,000 the baseball team needed,
presumably knowing that money
would funnel into the Towson athletic
department. O’Malley and the Board
of Regents apparently found a way to
get around this rule, completely undermining the policy.
So why did they choose to break
the rules now, for Towson? Sports
Illustrated reported that our university’s athletic department, as well as
most public university departments,
is a “self-sufficient auxiliary unit,”

meaning there can be no state funds
allocated toward athletics. But if the
state is willing to break the rules for
Towson, why didn’t it do the same
for us?
We understand the economic situation was different last year, and that
may have prevented our programs from
being bailed out.
But the very existence of university
athletic teams shouldn’t be contingent
upon fluctuating budgetary problems.
Prospective and current students
might have spent years preparing for
a college career subsidized by an athletic scholarship, and to pull the rug out
from under them in order to attempt a
balance in the university checkbook is
bad enough. Now, if the state saves a
program with similar struggles because
state coffers happen to have enough
money, those students are frankly
being insulted.
The board should change its policy,
rather than simply creating loopholes
to break it.
The university system has now come
out offering matching $300,000 grants
to any Division I school in the system
straining to remain financially solvent
in its athletic department and Title
IX compliance. If this is true, it could
change the financial structure of intercollegiate athletics as we know it
— something the board is well on its
way to doing without policy changes.
But we urge lawmakers to ensure
they have the resources to make this
promise. If universities and prospective students are expecting a bailout
similar to Towson’s, and the university
system is unable to follow through, it
runs the risk of losing all credibility in
future financial matters.

Making the worst month your best
EZRA FISHMAN
As the semester draws to a close,
it gets hard to find time to relax and
enjoy this beautiful campus we have.
At the same time, though, these past
three weeks are always the best time
of the year for fun activities. Because
you probably don’t have time between
finals, projects and papers to plan out
any adventures, here’s a guide to the
fun things you should plan to do with
your study breaks.
First, get to McKeldin Mall, Washington Quad or La Plata Beach. If you’re
someone who tans, it’ll probably be
swelteringly hot and sunny for at least
one of these weeks. Your nice tan will
impress everyone else during your exam
(and maybe distract enough people
to increase the curve a few points). If
you’re someone who appreciates the
human form, take an expedition outside
— the views are stunning.
Regardless, there are also tons of
fun activities to be had. If you’ve never
played Kan Jam or haven’t experienced
college-level Duck, Duck, Goose, now
is the time. Finally, if you’ve never
read a good book while sitting next to
a bunch of people who are tanning — or

n 2012, university President Wallace
Loh charged a work group — the
President’s Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics — to examine the athletic department’s budget, which had
appeared balanced for several years. It
uncovered the department’s $83 million
debt and a projected $4.7 million deficit
in fiscal year 2011, and recommended
eight teams be eliminated.
Men’s indoor and outdoor track,
men’s cross country, men’s and
women’s swimming and diving,
men’s tennis, acrobatics and tumbling and water polo were all placed
on the chopping block. Loh accepted
the recommendation, also giving the
teams until June 30, to raise enough
money for eight years of competition,
as proposed by Athletic Director Kevin
Anderson. Coaches and alumni banded
together in an attempt to raise the millions of dollars needed to sustain their
programs. But the sums proved too
great, and every team except outdoor
track failed to meet its goal.
Yet when Towson University President Maravene Loeschke announced
in March that the baseball and men’s
soccer teams would be eliminated to
help the department balance its budget
and retain its adherence to Title IX,
Gov. Martin O’Malley stepped in to
save the baseball team. He allocated
$300,000 of the state budget to extend
the life of the program.
What’s really troubling is that
O’Malley’s decision directly violates one
of the University System of Maryland’s
own policies on intercollegiate athletics. The policy states, “Intercollegiate
athletics programs are to be managed
on a self-supporting basis, meaning
that all spending and expenses are to

maria romas

even if you have — now is a great time
for that as well.
When it’s not sunny out, you should
still find a way to be outside. Every
year around finals, there seems to be
a giant freak monsoon. For about a
day or two, it rains nonstop, and the
entire campus turns to mush. For most
people, this sounds horrifying, and it
does get a bit gross. But it’s also a great
time to mess around on the campus.
Take advantage of your already soaked
clothes by taking a dip in one of our
luxurious fountains or by running
through McKeldin Mall’s sprinklers.
Get a box of trash bags and mudslide down the hill behind Dorchester
Hall. Mud wrestle. If nothing else,
just run around like an idiot. Nothing
makes you feel better after staying up
all night studying than a shower from
nature itself (which you should probably follow up with an actual shower).
Try it.
Beyond all this, finals week is a
great time to get in those sincere
moments of friendship — and random
acquaintance — you’ve wanted all
year. When you’re exhausted, so are
your friends and that random person
in your class you’ve studied for all
night. In these stress-filled moments,
funny things start to happen. People
get more open and honest; you can

have long conversations about your
feelings and the future with someone
you’ve never even met before. People
are also more open to doing crazy
things. If you’ve ever needed a friend
who would climb a roof, play a game
of tag, start a dormwide water fight
or join you in some other ridiculous
activity you’ve long had on your
college bucket list, you’re bound to
find one. Four a.m. has a way of bringing exactly the right people together
at exactly the right time — you just
need to be open to it.
The best part of these activities
is that almost none of them require
any planning. Just look outside your
window and see the weather. If it’s
nice, hop outside to your nearest
tanning location. If it’s miserable,
grab some friends and a box of trash
bags. If it’s pitch black out and you
don’t know why you even bother
anymore, it’s probably time to take a
break and have a deep conversation
with someone — who, in all likelihood, you’ve probably never even
talked to before. If you do, you’ll find
these last three weeks tremendously
more bearable.
Ezra Fishman is a junior accounting
and finance major. He can be reached
at ezra.fish@gmail.com.

AIR YOUR VIEWS
Address your letters or guest columns to Maria Romas and Nadav Karasov at opinionumdbk@gmail.com. All submissions must be
signed. Include your full name, year, major and phone number. Please limit letters to 300 words and guest columns to between 500 and
600 words. Submission of a letter or guest column constitutes an exclusive, worldwide, transferable license to The Diamondback of the
copyright of the material in any media. The Diamondback retains the right to edit submissions for content and length.

On April 26, President Obama
embraced a political lightning rod,
delivering a passionate speech at
Planned Parenthood’s National
Conference in Washington. Obama’s
speech marked the first time a sitting
president has addressed Planned
Parenthood, an organization that
has continuously aroused passions
on both sides of the political aisle.
Cutting Planned Parenthood’s
funding has become a common
talking point among many in the
GOP. Republican presidential
nominee Mitt Romney promised
that if elected, he would cut all
federal funding to Planned Parenthood his first week in office. U.S.
Senate, House and Republican gubernatorial candidates frequently
espouse the belief that Planned Parenthood is nothing but a baby-killing machine. After Obama’s speech,
Sarah Palin asserted Planned Parenthood has “racist and eugenicist
origins,” and questioned why “our
president would ‘bless’ the cruel
underlying efforts of an organization like this.”
Planned Parenthood has faced
criticism from outside formal GOP
circles as well. In 2012, the Susan G.
Komen for the Cure foundation announced it would no longer distribute funds to Planned Parenthood.
However, after a massive public
outcry from Komen donors and supporters, the group reversed its decision. The Komen Board of Directors
even felt compelled to issue a formal
apology: “We want to apologize to
the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving
women’s lives.”
Let’s drop the conspiracy theories and blatant falsehoods. Only
3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s
activities is abortion services. Each
year, Planned Parenthood provides
585,000 Pap tests, gives 640,000
breast exams and administers 4.5
million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections such as
HIV. Twenty percent of all women in

the U.S. have visited Planned Parenthood at least once in their lifetime.
Rational observers will dismiss destructive statements complaining about
Planned Parenthood’s nonexistent covert
mission to murder American children.
Take my word for it: This is no eugenicsbased killing factory. I promise.
The Supreme Court affirmed the
legality of abortion 40 years ago in its
landmark Roe v. Wade decision. Yet
opponents of this decision are perhaps
more vocal than ever. A woman’s right
to choose is under siege in many states,
including Virginia, where in 2012, Gov.
Bob McDonnell signed a bill making
ultrasounds a mandatory prerequisite
for abortions.
Our country’s highest court has
already spoken unequivocally. But if a
segment of the population insists, then
let us continue to debate the merits of
allowing women to have an abortion.
What we must not do, however, is use
this ongoing debate as an opportunity
to threaten the ability of our mothers,
sisters and daughters to acquire the
health care they deserve. We must not
let opposition to 3 percent of Planned
Parenthood’s operations cloud the importance of the other essential health
services it provides. We cannot let the
abortion debate deny millions of women
basic health services.
Planned Parenthood prevents
countless women from suffering from
devastating diseases such as breast
cancer and HPV. It provides diabetes
and cholesterol screenings and flu and
tetanus vaccinations. The organization
saves lives.
This is not my attempt to preach that
women are incapable of fighting their
own battles. This is me standing in solidarity with women. This is me raising
awareness of your ongoing struggle.
Last week, Obama praised the organization’s resiliency in the face of
concerted efforts by the political right
to cut its funding: “If there’s one thing
the last few years have shown, it’s that
Planned Parenthood is not going anywhere; it’s not going away today; it’s
not going away tomorrow.”
Let us hope the president is right.
B e n K ra m e r i s a s o p h o m o re
government and politics and
history major. He can be reached at
bkramer1@terpmail.umd.edu.

GUEST COLUMN

F

The paradox in
feminism

eminism is a movement promoting equal rights and opportunities
for women. Based on that definition, I’d consider myself a feminist.
In fact, I think most people would
probably consider themselves feminists. If this were the true definition
of feminism, why aren’t there more
feminists around?
Christina Hoff Sommers recently
gave a lecture on the campus about
her book, The War Against Boys.
Obviously, the title of the book was
designed to be controversial and
shake some people’s points of view.
She stated that for every two men who
graduate with a bachelor’s degree,
there are three women who graduate with one. She also cited statistics
showing that women are performing
better than men in school. Sommers
even went so far as to say that some
misguided forms of feminism are
hurting men.
Many feminists in attendance did
not agree with the point she was
trying to make and argued that men
are doing better than women. I heard
many feminists say things such as,
“Men are making more money than
women” and, “There are more men
than women in science, technology,
engineering and mathematics majors
and careers,” which are common arguments among feminists.
At that point, I realized feminism
has strayed away from its definition.
The rights and opportunities are
already there, and feminists have accomplished their goal of equal rights
in education. The problem is they
want to see results.
Until women are making the same
amount of money as men and are just

as prevalent in STEM fields, feminists
will feel as though their job is not done
(at least in the realm of education). The
fallacy with that style of thinking is that
feminists are not taking into account
that men and women have the right to
choose whichever career path they want.
Sommers brought up the fact that more
women choose to major in the social
sciences, whereas more men choose to
major in STEM fields.
Feminists claim that women are doing
so because of culture and tradition. But
women are now doing plenty of things
that at recent points in time were seen
as culturally unacceptable. For example,
roughly 75 years ago, this university’s
student body consisted mainly of men;
women did not traditionally attend
college. Additionally, women majoring in STEM fields are often selected
for jobs over men with similar resumes.
Overall, it seems the idea of feminism
in modern society is paradoxical and
hypocritical in nature by trying to push
women into fields of work and study
that are more dominated by men, even
though the majority of women don’t
want to do so. If feminists were trying
to promote equal rights and opportunities for women, they would be OK with
women choosing whatever field they’d
like to go into, even if this resulted in
lower wages.
Trying to get women to enter the
fields of work that men are predominantly interested in is both oppressive
and marginalizing, which is exactly
what feminists were trying to fight in
the first place.
Pascal Bloch is a junior computer
science major. He can be reached at
pbloch@terpmail.umd.edu.

54 Town east of
Wichita
55 Humdrum
56 Gutter site
57 From the U.S.
58 Beak

B

HOROSCOPE STELLA WILDER

orn today, you know how
to pick yourself up and
start over again when
you fall, which you are sure
to do now and then because
you are so daring in your
pursuit of personal success.
Fortunately, you will have been
taught when quite young that
mistakes and missteps are all
a part of life, and that you
can learn almost more from
them than you can from any
progress or success. You are
constantly judging and assessing your decisions, your actions
and your accomplishments,
eager to be a better person
and to improve yourself on a
daily basis.
You are likely to be widely
admired, simply because you
hold true to your ideals and
“stay the course” as a matter
of principle. You can be unusually sensitive -- far more so
than many a Taurus native, in
fact -- but you turn this into an
asset and never let it become a
liability.
Also born on this date are:
Tim McGraw, country singer and actor; Ray Parker Jr.,
singer; Rita Coolidge, singer;
Judy Collins, singer; Glenn Ford,
actor; Kate Smith, singer.
To see what is in store
for you tomorrow, find your
birthday and read the corresponding paragraph. Let your
birthday star be your daily
guide.
THURSDAY, MAY 2
TAURUS (April 20-May 20) -You’ve been playing by someone
else’s rules long enough. Today is
the day for you to break free from

constraints you can no longer
tolerate.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20) -You may want to take yourself a
little more seriously at this time.
A new friend is likely to become
more important to you.
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
-- You’ve had it with the same old
routine -- but you may not know
the way out just yet. Keep your
eyes open for a rare and attractive
opportunity.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) -- Someone may be trying to hold you
down, but you won’t take no for an
answer. What happens to you today will leave a lasting impression.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) -You can have almost anything you
want today, but you must be willing to ask for it -- and do a certain
something that is asked of you.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) -- After your eyes are opened to a new
situation that is quickly developing, there may be no stopping you.
Someone rolls out the red carpet.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)
-- You may realize that style and
substance are both important

today -- but you must start with
substance. Another revelation can
be yours as well.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec.
21) -- You can contribute to another’s success today, but you may
have to sacrifice a little something
on your own home turf.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan.
19) -- Take care not to overthink
problems today; they are really
very easy to solve if you take them
one at a time.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)
-- Someone may be taking charge
of situations that are really yours
to control. You must be willing to
stand up for yourself.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)
-- You and a rival are poised to go
round and round again -- unless
you are willing to make a change
that eases tensions considerably.
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
-- Trust is the major issue today,
and you should know whether or
not you have assembled a team you
can trust before the end of the day.
COPYRIGHT 2013
UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.

judge tells us the beef Wellington is
gorgeous when it plainly looks like (to
borrow a Ramsayism) donkey s---.
Unlike every other reality TV show,
upbeat and uplifting story lines are
never emphasized. Hell’s Kitchen lives
and breathes schadenfreude, from
every sardonic quip of the narrator to
Hell’s Kitchen is one of the worst shows on TV. We dare you not to watch it.
Ramsay’s customary dressing-downs.
We, and they, like to believe that It doesn’t matter whether or not the
By Warren Zhang
As in any piece worthy of North
Senior staff writer
Korean propaganda, there’s much Hell’s Kitchen is a meritocracy, that cook deserves to be verbally spanked;
rigid regality and pageantry to behold. great success comes from just a little bit the show will aestheticize and dramaI’ve watched Hell’s Kitchen on and Every episode of Hell’s Kitchen follows more elbow grease and that the creme tize it so you will guffaw, even more
so than you do at Jersey Shore.
off since high school, and I have always the same structure, without fail: a always, infallibly rises to the top.
The finales, then, are always underBut the lasting power of Hell’s
been baffled by why I keep subjecting punched-up recap, “And now, the conmyself to it. I think I hate the show (it tinuation of Hell’s Kitchen,” bitching Kitchen isn’t its surprisingly stark stated affairs, ending just as the winner
is the television equivalent of eating about being put up on the block and an depiction of America’s demograph- is announced; all that’s left is for him
deep-fried butter), but I almost always extremely basic challenge tarted up by ics. We are also, at heart, a nation of or her and the rest of the wannabe hashaters. We hate everything: the left beens to disappear back to the darkness
end up idly watching an episode or two third-rate hack production trickery.
You just know the scores will tie up wing, the right wing, our weight, our from which they came. You won’t ever
each season despite my best intentions.
I concede there is something un- just before the commercial break, but failures, our weaknesses, our supe- see a Hell’s Kitchen reunion. I wouldn’t
be too surprised if most ex-condeniably fascinating about the show. by God does it still sting when those riors, and most of all, ourselves,
testants are dead.
Hell’s Kitchen is every totalitarian jumped-up editors start cutting to for not being all that we
There is no place
regime ever in miniature. Never, ever reaction shots before hitting a hack- can be.
fo r p o s it i vHell’s Kitchen
question the wisdom of dear leader neyed title card and commercials.
ity or happiIf you peel back the food, the lar- t a p s i n t o
chef Gordon Ramsay, lest you wish to
ness in Hell’s
get swiftly booted out of the kitchen gesse and the cursing, Hell’s Kitchen that pri ma l
Kitchen.
by the angriest Brit on TV. What’s left is nothing more than a bag of four or h a t r e d .
Every time
is to scurry around the kitchen and five editing tricks. The same music T h e s h o w
a cheftescurry favor with the esteemed tyrant. cues get reused over and over again i s pl a i n ly
tant laughs
A little bit of kiss-ass goes a long way, like a dish towel in a stingy restau- nonnutrior smiles,
but be warned: Ramsay is a vengeful rant. That cursed dinner service tious junk
it must be
god. He shall smite when he damn well theme triggers an almost Pavlovian T V, y e t i t
followed up
feels like it — or when his producers response: I know the carnage is about compels you
by a shot of
to unfold, and I’m drooling for it like t o s i t d o w n
need another bumper for an advert.
someone crying,
and gape. T he
Personalities emerge among the a dog thinking of his bone.
dying or just plain
The show is obviously an atroc- s h o w s u g g e s t s
beleaguered contestants: The egotist
suffering. Oscillations
is smugly assured of his superiority in ity, and it brings out the worst in me, that maybe, maybe
between
the carrot and the
the kitchen while his comrades eagerly but there’s something that keeps on you aren’t any better than
photo courtesy of
this. Maybe you deserve gordonramsayangry.tumblr.com stick are never-ending,
anticipate his downfall. The sycophant hooking me.
I’ve come to realize Hell’s Kitchen Hell’s Kitchen, to watch these terrible with each turn becoming so rapid
worships Ramsay and is liable to be
utterly shattered when Ramsay makes represents America in a microcosm. people do horrible things as penance that they just blur together.
In terms of the carrot, who’s to
bold comparisons between the cook The cheftestants are a ragtag team of for your sins.
The food is never actually appealing. say that going to a medieval fair with
and a barn full of fecal matter. The dreamers fighting tooth and nail for a
voice of reason merely appears to be goal that’s probably not worth it. They Whereas a show like Top Chef actu- Ramsay actually counts as a reward?
reasonable relative to the rest of the cover a broad array of people, from the ally makes the cuisine attractive, Hell’s Weren’t the challenge rewards supnuthouse. He or she will go far but will competent to the delusional, from the Kitchen’s entrees are always hideous. posed to be rewarding?
No matter how terrible, how inprobably still lose to someone less sane. beautiful to the unspeakably heinous. It’s always a shock when Ramsay or a

fantile the prize, the winning team
always reacts as if it’s just been given
the keys to the candy shop. It goes far
beyond psyching the other team out.
Without fail, one person will jump up
and down, and one person will tell in
the confessional a cliched variant of
“Best. Reward. Ever.” Somehow, this
makes everything seem a lot worse.
Hell’s Kitchen excels at creating this
noxious environment, in which it’s OK
to look down on and hate everything
and everyone — and, by extension,
yourself — because you know they’ll
get their just desserts. Right after the
commercial. At the end of the next
episode. When the chefs get their black
jackets. In the epic season finale. When
they reach their goal and realize “head
chef” is an empty, meaningless title.
Like any successful cult, Hell’s
Kitchen has its methods of luring you
into its trap and keeping you there.
Let’s say you’ve had enough, and you
want out. Well, if you ever watch
anything on Hulu or Fox’s website,
there will be huge ads for the show.
You mustn’t click on the banner.
You mustn’t click. You mustn’t. You
mustn’t. You mustn’t.
Say you take it a step further and
stop watching television altogether.
Finally, you’re free at last. But then
you lie awake in bed, staring up at the
ceiling when you hear a faint trace of
that insidiously generic rock theme,
a ghost beckoning you back into the
underworld.
I hate Gordon Ramsay with all my
heart.
H e l l’s Ki t c h e n i s a n ut te r
abomination.
I can’t keep wasting time watching
this garbage.
Well, maybe one episode won’t hurt.
I love Big Brother.

stay out of the kitchen

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WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2013 | NEWS | THE DIAMONDBACK

BLAIR
From PAGE 1
coverage of the sniper attacks — and
often lied about his whereabouts.
His actions would call into
question the management, accuracy and accountability of the nation’s most respected newspaper.
Madigan, along with many
former Diamondback colleagues
and journalism college faculty,
had no idea Blair’s questionable
reporting would end in a cautionary tale of someone given
too much too soon.
“It was amazing,” said Danielle
Newman, who worked with Blair at
The Diamondback. “It shocked me
that it blew up to be what it was.”

‘SICK LITTLE SUSPICION’
Chris Hanson was a finalist
for a tenure-track position as
an associate professor in the
journalism college in 1999. He
sat down for a one-on-one interview with then-Dean Reese
Cleghorn, and later spoke with
Blair, a student involved in the
selection process who had been
offered a job at the Times.
The quick-minded senior
quizzed Hanson’s knowledge
of several plagiarism cases, including that of Mike Barnicle, a
former Boston Globe columnist
who fabricated and plagiarized
many columns. Blair later told
Hanson he was the stronger candidate because of how well he
knew and understood the cases.
“He was praising me for
knowing the issue well,” Hanson

said. “Rather ironic.”
Hanson had an unsettling
feeling when he saw Blair’s frontpage story on Dec. 22, 2002,
which flatly stated all evidence
pointed to 17-year-old Lee Malvo
as the main — and perhaps only —
gunman in the sniper attacks. It
was an unexpected development,
given that Muhammad, 41, was a
trained Army infantryman. Blair
cited five pieces of evidence and
quoted anonymous law enforcement officials.
Hanson wondered how an inexperienced reporter who didn’t
live in Washington could possibly
have sources feeding him such
incriminating information.
Days later, Hanson’s question
was answered when a Virginia
commonwealth’s attorney called a
news conference to rebuke Blair’s
reports.
“I don’t think that anybody
in the investigation is responsible for the leak,” Robert Horan
Jr. said, “because so much of it
was dead wrong.”
The news conference was only
the beginning. Over the next five
months, the questions surrounding Blair’s work grew. When The
San Antonio Express-News raised
concerns over striking similarities between one of Blair’s articles and one the paper ran on
April 18, 2003, Times editors
began a full investigation of
Blair’s work.
His editors found he’d lied
about his travels, as he claimed
to be in various cities on reporting assignments and submitted
expense reports when he never
left New York. He concocted

7

scenes based entirely on secretly
obtained, unpublished photographs from a private Times database. And he made up entire
quotes and anonymous sources
while covering high-profile national stories.
His career at the Times was
effectively over. By May 1, he
announced he was leaving the
newspaper after a nearly fouryear run.
Ten days after Blair’s resignation, the Times ran a 7,239-word
front-page story detailing the
27-year-old’s journalistic misdeeds. Five Times reporters, who
talked to more than 150 people,
including editors and Blair’s
sources, wrote that the incident
served as a “low point in the 152year history of the newspaper.”
And it wasn’t just Blair who
faced intense scrutiny. His
consistent, calculated lying
prompted many Times reporters
to come forward with mounting
complaints about the newspaper’s management. The Times’
top-ranking editors, Gerald Boyd
and Howell Raines, resigned five
weeks after Blair.
The once-celebrated journalism college student, who never
finished his degree, was making
national headlines for one of the
most notorious scandals in the
field’s history. Blair, who had
quizzed Hanson on past plagiarism cases a little more than a halfdecade earlier, had carved his own
place in journalism lore. He’d given
the paper what Times publisher
Arthur Sulzberger Jr. later called
a “huge black eye.”
“My sick little suspicion in

the pit of my stomach was true,” 3 million at the time.
Hanson said.
“There were people here who
were very angry at him,” said Carl
Stepp, a journalism college proIN RETROSPECT
fessor who often spoke with Blair.
There was his picture smacked “He embarrassed himself and he
on the cover of Newsweek. Blair embarrassed us, but it was mostly
sported short black hair, a beard and sadness. It was a wasted career
glasses while smoking a cigarette. of a very talented young man.”
Faculty members wondered
“The secret life of Jayson Blair”
filled the magazine cover in capital if they’d ignored warning signs
block letters on a May 2003 issue. while Blair was a student in the
He was suddenly the first student late 1990s. Could they have
from the Philip Merrill College of stopped him, they thought, or at
Journalism to appear on the cover of least helped before it was too late?
“You always have that question,”
the former weekly news magazine,
which boasted a circulation of about Stepp said. “As a teacher, I think

every day there is some troubled
student here that I need to see.”
Former Diamondback staffers said the Times saga was
only proof of what they knew
six years earlier.
Thirty alumni, including
Newman and Madigan, signed a
letter, addressed to three figures
they felt were key in Blair’s rise,
in June 2003: Thomas Kunkel,
then the journalism college dean;
Christopher Callahan, then an
associate dean; and Ivan Penn,
who helped elect Blair as editor
See blair, Page 8

MORE ONLINE

tornado preparations
After months of bleak winter, the sounds of spring are
in the air at last. Walking between classes, students can
hear the chatter of squirrels, the chirping of birds, and
on certain Wednesdays, a deafening, wailing alarm that
sounds like something out of a war movie.
An oft-ignored, little-understood phenomenon among
students, this discordant shriek is the song of the university’s tornado sirens. Perched atop the Benjamin
Building, Computer and Space Science Building and the
Service Building on Route 1, the three sirens are positioned so they can warn students and faculty anywhere
on the campus of imminent danger.
The university installed the sirens as an emergency
alert system after a tornado tore through the campus
in September 2001, shredding buildings and killing two
students.
For more of Nate Rabner’s post, check out The
Diamondback’s student blogs at diamondbackonline.com.

photo courtesy of the astronomy department

8

THE DIAMONDBACK | NEWS | WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2013

BLAIR
From PAGE 7
in chief of The Diamondback.
The former students wanted
answers about Blair’s time at
the university, they wrote. They
wanted the journalism college
and The Diamondback to conduct
their own reviews of Blair’s work
and “create a more open and evenhanded environment of communication for current students.”
In the letter, the former students reminded Kunkel, Callahan and Penn of when they
first expressed their problems
with Blair. He had no editing or
management experience before
helming The Diamondback, they

“

said, and they could not verify
some of the facts he gathered
while he was a reporter.
And as the paper’s leader, they
wrote, he was unreliable with his
work responsibilities. He disappeared “for long stretches”
and didn’t properly pay his staff
members. Even though Blair is
black, the alumni wrote, “race
had nothing to do with it.”
But there was one thing staff
members desired above all else.
“Finally, and most importantly, we ask that you listen,”
the alumni wrote. “Listen when
current and future Diamondback
staffs raise concerns, particularly
the senior members.”
The staff members had a point,
Stepp thought. Perhaps Blair’s rise

to stardom should have been slowed
down while he was a student.
“You want to respect students
and encourage students, but you
also want to be careful and remember they’re still young and still
insecure and need a lot of help,”
Stepp said. “How do you push
them and treat them like adults,
but know they’re going through a
lot of stuff you don’t know about?”

SCHADENFREUDE

Newman often grew enraged
with Blair when they both worked
at The Diamondback in the late
1990s. When they passed each
other in the journalism college’s hallways, Newman always
mumbled insults under her breath.
One day, she was so vexed that
she sent an email to Blair.
“You’re gonna get busted one
day, just like Janet Cook [sic],”
she wrote to the then-editor in
chief, referencing a Washington
Post writer who won a Pulitzer
Prize in 1981 for a story that was
later found to be fabricated.
“You don’t even know how to
spell
her name,” Blair responded,
CARL STEPP
referencing
the missing “e” in
Journalism professor
Cooke’s last name.

you want to respect students and encourage
students, but you also want to be careful and
remember they’re still young and still insecure and
need a lot of help.”

“You’re still gonna get busted,”
Newman wrote.
So when Blair’s journalism
career met an unceremonious end,
former Diamondback staffers said
only one word perfectly summed
up how they felt: schadenfreude,
which means taking glee in
someone else’s misery.
Blair was a great schmoozer
— he always made a great first
impression, they said — but his
old colleagues knew that could
only take him so far.
Faculty felt differently.
“It was sad to see a former
student sort of at the vertex of a
huge journalistic problem,” said
Chris Harvey, the journalism college’s internship and career development director who taught Blair
in an intensive reporting class.“You
don’t want to ever see somebody do
poorly, and especially students who
showed so much promise.”
When Newman read through
the extensive Times story detailing the errors in Blair’s work, she
said she and former Diamondback staffers related to the Times’
metropolitan editor, who in 2002
wrote an email to administrators
about Blair.
“We have to stop Jayson from

writing for the Times,” Jonathan
Landman wrote, according to the
2003 Times article. “Right now.”
Newman hadn’t seen many of
her college newspaper friends in
years, she said, but Blair’s downfall called for a party.
The Friday following Blair’s
resignation, she got the day off
from her Washington Post job and
invited the former staff members
to her house. The festivities came
about six years after the group
met in the middle of the night at
Plato’s Diner to decide what to do
about their irresponsible boss.
Newman mounted Blair’s Times
mugshot on a dartboard she borrowed from her parents, and the
old Diamondback staffers took
turns pelting darts. And, of course,
they played “Lyin’ Eyes,” the Eagles
song that had become a sort of
anthem during their trying experience with Blair. They were once
again singing the lyrics together:
“You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes.”
The 20-somethings couldn’t
help but enjoy knowing Blair’s deceitful ways had finally caught up
with him. But Madigan, who said
he can still hear Blair’s characteristic cackle, struggled to believe his
former peer so publicly imploded.

“

you don’t want to
EVER see somebody
do poorly, and
especially students
who showed so
much promise.”
CHRIS HARVEY
Journalism college internship
and career development director

“You’re going to work with
a lot of people in your career,”
he said. “I don’t see a lot of
use crying and moaning about
it happening because it does
happen. I do hope the next time
it does, people pay attention to
the warning signs.”
This is part two of a threepart feature on Jayson Blair’s
rise and fall. Check back Friday
for the lessons learned at this
university a decade later.
newsumdbk@gmail.com

WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2013 | NEWS | THE DIAMONDBACK

9

Student use of scooters rising despite strict state laws
Riders required
to wear helmets,
eye protection
By Bradleigh Chance
Staff writer
Despite the threat of steep
fines for not following newly
implemented state scooter requirements, the number of students using scooters to navigate
the campus has only increased,
according to DOTS officials.
Police have been lenient about
enforcing the new requirements, which were put into
place in October and mandate
that students wear helmets and
protective eyewear while riding

TOWSON
From PAGE 1
about the same decision and the
same painful process that President
Loeschke went through and yet the
reaction from the comptroller is
totally different,” Brochin said.“I’m
missing something here.”
Eventually,Gov.Martin O’Malley
allocated $300,000 of the state
budget to extend the life of the
Towson baseball program, but it still
raised questions about the application of Title IX, a federal law that
requires equal opportunity for both
men’s and women’s sports in college
athletics, among other provisions.

scooters. But as awareness of
the law increases, students who
don’t comply will face a $110
fine, police said.
Student riders who weren’t
used to wearing protective gear
weren’t initially penalized, said
University Police spokesman
Sgt. Aaron Davis.
“Much like any new law,
there is an adjustment period
as people acclimate themselves
to a new behavior,” Davis said.
“What we saw initially were a
lot of people that still did not
wear glasses or goggles, simply
out of ignorance.”
The number of incidents
in which police have stopped
scooter riders has increased
since the law was put into

place, but most often, police
were simply educating students
about the law, Davis said. Officers gave out warnings instead
of citations in many cases.
Although many students
said they’ve noticed a drop in
scooter ridership since the law
was passed, the Department of
Transportation Services put a
new scooter pad in Lot 11b last
week because of rising demand
for scooter parking.
“I think popularity of scooters
has rapidly declined,” said Lawrence Laynburd, a junior aerospace engineering major. “Last
year, it was beginning to pick up,
but the law came just in time to
ruin it for a lot of people. I avoid
riding my scooter as often as pos-

sible because I hate my helmet.”
Some students, including
Laynburd, said they frequently
see students abiding by the law,
although some riders still push
its limits.
“Most people wear a helmet
with at least a visor for eye
protection, but sometimes I
see people wearing baseball or
lacrosse helmets instead, which
is against the rules because
those helmets aren’t DOTSapproved,” Laynburd said. “If
I had a Maryland Terps baseball helmet, I’d probably wear
it instead of my goofy scooter
helmet, too.”
Laynburd said he has only
seen one student riding a
scooter without a helmet on

“i think popularity of scooters has rapidly declined
... last year, it was beginning to pick up, but the law
came just in time to ruin it for a lot of people.”

the campus since the law went
into effect, likely because of the
effort University Police have put
into educating students.
“I remember before the law
passed, a cop pulled up next to
me just to give me a heads-up
about the new rules coming up,
and how much each ticket for
each individual violation would
cost me,” he said.
Other students have already
felt the sting of a hefty citation.
Freshman kinesiology major

Shannon Collins, who plays on
the women’s soccer team, said
while she also feels the popularity of scooters is decreasing, the
new laws are having an impact
on those who use them to traverse the campus.
“The fine for not having a
helmet or eye protection is
absurd, and I think that [is] a
deterrent and forces us to follow
the new laws,” she said.

Schools in the University
System of Maryland can’t accept
state funds for their athletic programs, per the system’s Board of
Regents policy. But O’Malley was
able to offer the money by giving
it to the university system, which
then passed it onto Towson. To
maintain fairness, the system
pledged to donate matching
$300,000 grants to Division I
schools trying to maintain a Title
IX-mandated balance in their
athletic programs, The Baltimore
Sun reported.
Joshua Thompson, an attorney
at the Pacific Legal Foundation,
which has been involved with
lawsuits over the constitutional-

ity of Title IX in the past, said men’s
sports usually get the ax when
schools have to stretch athletic
budgets and adhere to federal law.
“Schools have two options when
faced with a complaint that alleges
that they are out of balance: They
can increase opportunities for
women by creating new sports for
women … or they can cut men’s
sports,” Thompson said. “When
universities are faced with constrained budgets and finite resources … we don’t really see in great
numbers that new sports are added
for women or that more opportunities are necessarily generated.”
While Title IX may have come
into play in Loeschke’s decision at

Towson, the situation at this university mirrors that of many schools
that decide to cut sports programs.
It almost always comes down to a
lack of financial resources, not
an issue of federal compliance
that spells doom for men’s sports
programs, said Nancy HogsheadMakar, a former Olympic swimmer
and senior director of advocacy for
The Women’s Sports Foundation.
“When schools do have to cut a
men’s program, it is inevitably —
and both Maryland and Towson are
prime examples of this — because
of budgets, because they can not
support the size of the athletic
program that they would like to,”
said Hogshead-Makar, who is also

a law professor at Florida Coastal
School of Law.
Whether athletic cuts are born
out of a need to comply with federal
law or a lack of resources on the part
of the athletic program,Brochin said
O’Malley, university system chancellor Brit Kirwan and the Board of
Regents should share more responsibility over the stability of athletics
programs and their compliance with
federal laws, and not leave it in the
hands of university presidents to
make these tough decisions.
He said this kind of a resolution
could have stopped this university
from cutting several sports programs in 2012.
“I think that the governor’s office

should have been proactive and
said, ‘Stop,’” Brochin said.
Budget woes could continue to
grow so much that only the sports
that bring in the most revenue, or
lose the least, survive while all other
programs fall to the wayside, which
Brochin said is detrimental to the
university as a whole.
“Why are football and basketball the end-all?” Brochin said. “It
just seems like we’ve just forgotten
about all the other sports and all the
kids who want to play these sports.”
“That’s not what university
athletics is supposed to be about,”
he said.

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10

THE DIAMONDBACK | Sports | Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Jackson
From PAGE 12
Varsity softball rejuvenated
Jackson’s interest in the sport.
She loved to hit, she said, and
enjoyed the low-pressure environment. Jackson also to challenge herself. She wanted to be
Fontana’s starting shortstop.
Five games later, she was.
“Once she was there, she was
into it,” Bruich said. “When she
commits to something, she’s
into it 100 percent.”

RECRUITMENT
Following Jackson’s freshman year, Henry J. Kaiser High
School opened closer to home,
so she transferred.
Then, Jackson received offers
to play travel softball. She
hardly wanted take that next
step, though, especially after
attending an open tryout.
“One girl is getting yelled at
for yawning on the field and
not hustling,” Jackson said.
“Another girl has passed out
because the workout was so
long, and an ambulance came.”
The intense environment was
unattractive to a girl who had no
intention of playing past high
school. Travel softball was also
too expensive, but a mother of
a former teammate at Fontana
offered Jackson and Stewart,
who played with her sister on
Kaiser’s varsity team, the opportunity to play for free.
While at Kaiser, Jackson
reluctantly — yet smoothly —
transitioned to travel softball.
The competition reminded
her of her former neighbor,
G e o rge . I t p u s h e d h e r i n
ways she wasn’t pushed in
high school. She was forced
to move back to right field.
Jackson was still a raw talent,
and she still struggled with
the awkwardness of adapting
to her wiry frame.
“The game became a lot
quicker, so I would try to do things
quicker,” she said. “But my feet
would get there before my glove.”
Her speed and body type
served her well in the outfield,
and many college coaches recruited her there. Still, Jackson
thought playing outfield was
too easy. She wanted to be a
shortstop because it was a challenge, but no interested schools
needed her to play there.
Jackson focused on Bethune-Cookman in Daytona
Beach, Fla. The coaches were
displaying heavy interest in
some of her teammates, so she
approached them, confused
and somewhat annoyed.
“So you’re not going to
recruit me?” Jackson said.
“Why aren’t you going to talk to
me? I know I’m better than her.”
As it turned out, BethuneCookman thought Jackson
wasn’t interested. She had
never responded to the Wildcats’ letters — she didn’t know
she had to. Jackson eventually
connected with then-coach
Laura Watten, who had good
news for the prospect.
“We knew that she would be
able to be versatile in any position,” Watten said. “We just so
happened to really need a strong
shortstop.”

BIG NUMBERS
Bethune-Cookman ended up

tigers
From PAGE 12
continued his progress after
a shaky start to his freshman
campaign, delivering another
strong midweek performance.
The freshman went seven
innings, allowing just one
earned run on six hits and
three walks, while striking
out seven.
“Going from high school
ball to college ball is a big
step,” Robinson said. “Being
the No. 1 guy in your area and
then coming to a college like
Maryland — it’s a big change,
and you have to adjust to certain
things. You have to grow and
understand that you’re not the
big dog anymore, and you need

being the perfect fit for Jackson.
In her three years with the
Wildcats, she batted .465 with
34 home runs and 175 RBIs.
She also stole 74 bases and got
caught only seven times.
“She definitely holds herself
to a higher measuring stick,”
former Bethune-Cookman
teammate Lauren McCoy said.
“As anybody with her ability
and talent should.”
Those numbers didn’t matter
to Jackson, however, if she
couldn’t perform in critical
moments. After Texas swept
the Wildcats in the 2005 NCAA
Super Regional, she was particularly hard on herself.
Jackson was no match for
Longhorns ace and 2004 and
2008 U.S. Olympian Cat Osterman in Game 1, and Jackson struck
out four times in a 1-0 defeat.
“I never strike out four times
in one game,” she said. “[I was]
doubting myself and my ability.”
It was one of her lowest
moments of her career.
After the season, Jackson
injured her back in a car accident. Her desire to play, let
alone return to the postseason,
took a huge hit.
Jackson was in constant
pain when she swung the
bat, and she didn’t know if
she could fight through it.
But Watten motivated her to
continue playing, so she went
through extensive physical
therapy to prepare herself for
the next season.
“I think [Watten] has been
a bigger influence than Amber
would let on,” Bruich said.“Amber
grew so much around her.”
But when Watten left to take
the coaching job in College Park
after the 2005 season, players
gradually lost their drive, and
the team environment quickly
dissipated. With that, it was
time for Jackson to move on.
The Terps offered her and
Stewart scholarships, and
the sisters were reunited with
Watten in 2007.
Jackson received her master’s of education at this university while breaking single-season records in batting
average (.408), home runs (24),
RBIs (56) and walks (55) in the
process.
Though she was set on ending
her playing career again at the
end of college, she was constantly pushed by those around
her to play at the next level: National Pro Fastpitch.

‘NEXT STEP’
Jackson enjoyed two successful years with the Washington
Glory and starred on the 2007
NPF championship team.
But after the 2008 season,
the Glory folded, and the
players’ contracts were picked
up by the USSSA Pride in
central Florida.
After being surrounded by
friends in the Washington area,
she failed to rebuild the network
that existed before in Florida.
Her body ached, and Jackson
decided to “take the next step”
in her life. She gave softball
lessons while working parttime as a teacher’s assistant at
Steuart W. Weller Elementary
School in Ashburn, Va.
It wasn’t long before
J a c k s o n wa s d ra w n i n to
coaching. A local coach recommended her to Loudoun
County High School in Lees-

to work and earn your stripes.”
The early-season struggles
in two-out situations were
gone yesterday, as eight of the
Terps’ 11 runs came with two
outs. The inability to deliver in
clutch situations was gone, at
least for one day.
And after reiterating the importance of quality two-out
at-bats to his players all season,
the first-year coach finally saw
the work pay dividends.
“It’s [about] just constantly
pounding away at it and talking
about it and working on it and
practicing it,” Szefc said. “If you
want to be good at something,
you just have to keep pounding
away at it, and that’s what we’ve
tried to do with these guys.”
sportsdbk@gmail.com

Later on, though, that view of
coaching would change.

A CHANGE OF HEART

assistant coach amber jackson starred for the Terps in 2007 and batted .408 with 24 home
runs, 56 RBIs and 55 walks — all then-single-season records. photo courtesy of maryland athletics
burg, Va., which was looking
for a coach. Soon after, she got
a call from the school.
“Well, why not?” Jackson
said. “Just give it a try.”
She was young and had
never coached before, but
Loudoun County hired Jackson
to lead its softball program.
Now she had new responsibilities: hiring assistants, managing a junior varsity program

and dealing with parents.
Despite the numerous tasks,
Jackson said she never felt overwhelmed. After all, she was
responsible for her players for
only several hours before they
returned home.
“I knew I liked high school
b e c a u s e o f t h a t a s p e c t ,”
Jackson said. “It wasn’t going
to be full-time. It wasn’t going
to be my life.”

During her time at Loudoun
County, Jackson went on a
sports mission trip to East Asia.
Athletes there had no emotional support from their coaches, and
she was taken aback.
“Their self-esteem, their selfconfidence and who they were as
an athlete was diminished because
of their experience,” Jackson said.
“That broke my heart.”
In those athletes’ pain, she
saw where she could make a
difference. Jackson had known
only supportive coaches like
Bruich and Watten in her career
and couldn’t fathom a career
without them.
“People would ask me why
[I went] to Bethune-Cookman,
to play softball; I didn’t go for
academic reasons,” she said.
“When [Coach Watten] quit,
that was just ripped away from
me. That was one of the hardest
times of my life.”
As someone who had been
through many hardships in her
childhood, she wanted to make
sure other athletes with similar
lives didn’t endure their experiences alone.
When Jackson returned to
College Park as a Terps assistant coach in summer 2011, she

knew what to expect in her new
position.
“It’s not just coaching the
game,” Jackson said. “That’s
minimal. You’re coaching them
on life.”

A CERTAIN FUTURE
Jackson’s spent most of her
life living in uncertainty.
Given the environment she was
raised in, she sometimes thinks
she shouldn’t have made it this far.
But those who have gotten
close to Jackson say she has had a
greater impact on them than they
have been able to have on her.
“She’s taught me a whole
lot about myself,” Watten said.
“She absolutely will tell me how
she feels. … She cares about my
growth as well.”
Jackson is no longer just waiting
for her career to end. It’s turned
into something far more important than it was all those years ago,
out on the street in Fontana’s dusk
when she had a completely different life planned.
Her next chapter hasn’t been
written yet, but now she’s sure
she knows what it will say.
“I think I’m going to be at
that point where I do want to be
a head coach one day,” Jackson
said. “[It’s] a lifestyle, it’s not a
job … it’s who I am; it’s what I do.”
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Page 12

wednesday, may 1, 2013

SOFTBALL

crafting a new ending

“It’s not just coaching
the game. That’s
minimal. You’re
coaching them on life.”
AMBER JACKSON
Terrapins softball assistant coach
BY THE NUMBERS

In 2007, Jackson enjoyed one of the finest seasons ever by a
Terrapins softball player, setting records in four major categories.

tim drummond/for the diamondback

.408 24
56 55
Batting average

Home runs

RBIs

Walks

In preparing for her storied softball career to reach its inevitable end, Amber Jackson found an unexpected calling in College Park
By Paul Pierre-Louis
Staff writer
Amber Jackson doesn’t remember her first
Little League team.
As a kid, she had no reason to keep track of
mascots or team colors. Softball was just something to do — a way to expend excess energy
beyond the Fontana, Calif., concrete.
When she enrolled in high school, Jackson
figured she would quit, focus on school and earn
an academic scholarship to college. Softball was
no more than an early chapter in the life story
she had drafted for herself.
She will never know, however, the ending her
story would have yielded had she quit softball.
There were many moments when Jackson’s
career could have suddenly expired — in ninth
grade when she grew tired of playing with the
same teammates season after season, or her
junior year of college when she injured her back in
a car accident and shattered her resolve to return
to the field — but she remained in the sport.
Now, wrapping up her second year as assistant coach of the Terrapins softball team,
Jackson no longer thinks about the day she will
step away from the sport. Instead, she envisions
the next phase, despite her wavering relationship with the game in the past.

What does softball mean to Jackson after
being involved in the sport for more than 15
years? After it took her 2,500 miles from home?
As one of the best hitters in NCAA Division I
history, Jackson owes much of her reputation to
the sport. But to properly answer those questions, Sarde Stewart responded as she believed
her older sister would.
“At the end of the day, it’s like, ‘That is my
passion. That is what I’m going to go back to no
matter how much I try to fight it,’” Stewart said.

UNTAPPED POTENTIAL
Jackson doesn’t think this generation, the
one she helps coach, can understand the way
she grew up.
“Children these days, they don’t just go out
and play,” Jackson said in late March, sitting in
her office in a black Terps softball sweatshirt. “We
played outside until the streetlights came on.”
Jackson remembers spending most days and
evenings playing tag or pretending to be a Power
Ranger in her Fontana neighborhood. She played
pickup basketball. There was little organization,
and turning the games she simply played for
fun into a career never entered the elementary
schooler’s mind.
But Jackson also remembers tougher

BASEBALL

Terps rout local
foe Towson, 11-3
Robinson allows one run over 7 innings
By Daniel Popper
Staff writer
All season, Terrapins baseball
coach John Szefc has stressed
the importance of working opposing pitchers deep into the
count, especially with two outs.
But the youthful Terps have
struggled to do so because of
lack of experience against the
arms in the ACC and across
Division I baseball.
Yesterday, in an 11-3 win over
Towson — the team’s second
victory over the Tigers in a week
— those same inexperienced
hitters delivered a multitude
of two-out RBIs, which lifted
the Terps to their fifth win in
six games.
“We had multiple two-out,
two-strike quality at-bats —
good at-bats — and that’s what
we’re trying to mold it around,”
Szefc said. “We’re trying to
mold it around putting 27 tough
outs together.”
Shortstop Blake Schmit
started the two-out outburst
in the second inning with the
Terps trailing 1-0. The transfer
from Des Moines Area Commu-

nity College ripped a line-drive
single to right field, scoring
third baseman Kevin Martir
from second to tie the game.
The Terps took a 2-1 lead in
the third inning. Martir hit an
easy ground ball with two outs
and runners on the corners, but
Towson first baseman Kurtis
Voytell couldn’t handle the
throw from second, allowing
center fielder Charlie White to
score from third.
The Terps scored two more
runs with two outs in the fourth
inning on an RBI single from
White and an RBI double from
right fielder Jordan Hagel. And
they continued their two-out
scoring barrage in the fifth
inning with a bases-loaded
hit by pitch and a three-RBI
double from second baseman
Jose Cuas.
“It’s [about] having more
productive at-bats,” Schmit
said. “Waiting for your pitch,
seeing one over the plate, not
breaking, you swing down and
driving it the other way.”
Left-hander Alex Robinson
See tigers, Page 10

moments of her childhood, ones that set her
early days farther apart from others.
Jackson’s father passed away when she was 2
years old, and her mother was in and out of jail
during Jackson’s entire childhood. Born in Los
Angeles, Jackson lived with her grandparents,
Henry and Annie Fulcher. But not knowing her
parents left some emptiness inside.
“Seeing other people have that and not having
it … it made it very difficult,” Jackson said. “So
I was very quiet.”
She also remembers her fulfilling athletic experiences as a child, like the times she played
stickball with next-door neighbor Tatiana George
— who went on to play for Florida State in the
2002 and 2004 Women’s College World Series.
Soon, Jackson started to see George leave
to play softball, and it sparked an interest. As
her curiosity grew, the sixth-grader asked her
grandmother to sign her up for the Fontana
Little League. The family saved money, and
Jackson began softball the next year.
At first, organized softball was very nervewracking for the quiet seventh-grader. She had
never been a part of a team before, and having
people depend on her made her feel uncomfortable.
Jackson recalls struggling at the plate, but
she made up for it with her speed. Besides, she
didn’t expect herself to crank out home runs

and smack line drives at this stage.
“It was fun,” Jackson said. “Different than
just playing outside.”
That was all it was to her, and she didn’t
seem interested in having it become anything
more. But those around Jackson realized she
had scratched only the surface of her potential.

‘THIS REALLY GOOD PLAYER, YOU KNOW?’
Dick Bruich already had an extensive resume
as football coach of state champion Fontana
High School, but he also had a much less notable
gig on the side: softball coach.
Bruich heard from gym teacher Floyd Youmans
there was a freshman with a bat worthy of the
varsity team. And at tryouts, one swing from the
gangly Jackson left the legendary coach enthralled.
Bruich wanted to do anything he could to get her
to continue her career. Jackson was tired of playing
with the same teammates year after year, and
she didn’t want to be stuck on a freshman team.
“She had this awesome swing and was just
this really good player, you know?” Bruich said.
“First game, we stuck her out in right field. We
wanted her to bat in the lineup.”
She made varsity and started from day one.
See Jackson, Page 10